The lawsuit against the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District was filed in state court last month and was announced Monday by the American Humanist Association. The group says the phrase, added in 1954, “marginalizes atheist and humanist kids as something less than ideal patriots.”
The anonymous plaintiffs say those two words “under God” violate the state constitution.
But school district lawyer David Rubin says the district is merely following a state law that requires schools to have a daily recitation of the pledge. He says individual students don’t have to participate.
I’m thankful my husband and i grew up when we did. We didn’t have these problems. Lotts of problems we didn’t have.
Let me put it this way. If someone put a gun to my head and said deny God they would have to shoot first.
If someone put a gun to the head of a humanist and said they would have to believe in God I would expect they would also say their assailant would have to shoot first.The problem with the humanists targeting various institutions is that NOBODY is putting a gun to their head. I’m sorry they feel ‘marginalized.’ If they truly do feel marginalized (which i doubt,but that’s neither here nor there)then they need to examine themselves. They also need to take a look at our history,our founding documents and the Constitution.
They also need to examine their end goal.What IS their end goal? God removed totally from American culture so that God will eventually (or so they believe)become forgotten and people will no longer accept that He exists. They won’t admit it but that IS the end goal. So they have to do it step by step.They have to do it little by little and win where they can. The end goal is silly. If they believe God doesn’t exist they could get on with their lives. Debate it in the public square.
Meantime how about looking at our founding documents,the principle founders of our country(known as the founding fathers) and our Constitution.
They(humanists)will probably say you have to consider the intent of the founding fathers when writing/signing the documents. Here’s just a few samples of how these men thought:
Benjamin Franklin
Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Unites States Constitution
“Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped.
“That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
“As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see;
“But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive, that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.”
The Declaration of Independence is the philosophical framework for the Constitution.The Constitution is the legal document derived from it.
The Declaration opens with these words:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
What they were saying is that all men(humanists included)get their rights from their Creator(which some believe IS God),not the state, and they are unalienable. The state doesn’t give them to us so the state doesn’t have the right to take them away from us. In fact it’s the obligation of the state to PROTECT those rights.
The Constitution made sure that the state(government)could not infringe on the rights of people who practice their beliefs.They wrote Congress shall make no law establishing a religion or interfering in the free exercise of. It didn’t restrict those who practice their beliefs. It didn’t even say that people with religious beliefs could not make law.They said CONGRESS could not make a law.What they meant by a law establishing a religion is that CONGRESS could not set up a denomination and force people-by law- to become part of it.
It put no restrictions on people and their religious convictions. Not even in the public square. We’re not guaranteed freedom of worship.We’re guaranteed freedom of religion which includes worship.You’re just as free to believe that God doesn’t exist but you’re not free to infringe on the rights of others to acknowledge God and that INCLUDES the pledge of allegiance. As long as you’re not forced to use the words,even if you feel marginalized, then you’re barking up the wrong tree.
The framers also built into the Constitution majority rule(otherwise we would have to have a consensus)and minority rights.Have people forgotten?Ok,the majority want the pledge of allegiance as it is recited in this school. The minority don’t believe in God. Do they have to? Nope.Do they have to say the words “under God”? Nope. Do they even have to say the pledge at all? Nope.So their right not to believe or not say the pledge is not being violated. They FEEL marginalized. They have a problem.Ah,the dramatics they cause.

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